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Originally published March 2007, Today's Garden Center

Does the world need another Echinacea?

You might think so. Who wouldn’t want yet another shade of coneflower to force into a crowded landscape? You might get so excited about it that you might run a special on it in the local newspaper, or feature it in the garden center newsletter. So Echinacea ‘blah, blah, blah’ becomes the 1403rd perennial that you offer this spring. It might be a hit with the local garden club, but chances are you won’t drive serious numbers.

Time for a reality check – in a world overwhelmed with the complexities of programming the new 52” LCD DLP big screen TV, yet another pink flower is just too much to bother with. To add insult to injury, the local newspaper is the last place your customer is looking for help with their landscape.

Gardening is becoming a dirty word.

Things are changing and the health of your business is going to depend upon your ability to shift your business model. The cold, hard facts show that the traffic to garden centers is slowing down. Retailers are faced with doing more business with fewer customers – so adding complexity to a shopping experience is just crazy.

Get used to designing rather than gardening and hardscapes rather than perennial gardens. Today’s customer has the attention span of a teenager. After all, they have been raised on Extreme Home Makeovers where a 3400 square foot home is built from scratch in less than 55 hours (no kidding, it actually happened), meals are created in 30 minutes and curb appeal is the Holy Grail.

There are new absolutes emerging – you must have a functioning website; you need to (re) position your business as a service company, and you need to market your ability to provide design solutions that will separate you from the pack.

I know, it sounds like just another marketing guy. The good news is that your garden center is uniquely positioned to profit with this emerging customer base. It will help if you can tap into the trends shaping a new economy.